As far as my experience goes, you need real intelligence not artificial intelligence to generate consistent alpha.

In similar vein...
Addition and subtraction (general accounting) - and not derivatives... or crazy math.
Realizable returns and paths - not distribution of random guesses...
Moments in time - not fixed or random intervals of engagement...
Real time constraint focused - not theoretical...
All about the forest (aggregate account of people's bets) Not every tick or quotes...
Real decisions from start to finish (tree of decision outcomes) - not about predicting...
Breaking and finding problems (past, present, future) - not ego stroking with fitting and/or backtesting
We are active in the derivative space but 2020 alpha all generated without a single utterance of "Greeks"
All human, time consuming efforts, no gimmicks.
Finally, alpha generated with no sales / IR / PR involved.
ps. If you're going to tell investors that the firm's "model" or "strategy" is "sensitive" to [insert random var] - thus justifies why you ended up subpar or down - that's not acceptable.
Market friction, thieves, technical difficulties, etc. are all things you have to overcome. This is business - like all other businesses. Thin/fragile margin - is not alpha.

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Great article from @AsheSchow. I lived thru the 'Satanic Panic' of the 1980's/early 1990's asking myself "Has eveyrbody lost their GODDAMN MINDS?!"


The 3 big things that made the 1980's/early 1990's surreal for me.

1) Satanic Panic - satanism in the day cares ahhhh!

2) "Repressed memory" syndrome

3) Facilitated Communication [FC]

All 3 led to massive abuse.

"Therapists" -and I use the term to describe these quacks loosely - would hypnotize people & convince they they were 'reliving' past memories of Mom & Dad killing babies in Satanic rituals in the basement while they were growing up.

Other 'therapists' would badger kids until they invented stories about watching alligators eat babies dropped into a lake from a hot air balloon. Kids would deny anything happened for hours until the therapist 'broke through' and 'found' the 'truth'.

FC was a movement that started with the claim severely handicapped individuals were able to 'type' legible sentences & communicate if a 'helper' guided their hands over a keyboard.